Endeavour NCC 194: In the Footsteps of Fate
by LeBiff
Summary: Alex Nain, helmsman of the 22nd Century Daedalus class Starship Endeavour, discovers a disturbing hint of her future on a distant planet.


**STAR TREK: ENDEAVOUR NCC-194**

_In the footsteps of Fate_

**Chapter One**

_August 21, 2164_

Outside the temple, a storm raged; sheets of grey rain as heavy as lead plunged from the sky in a smothering blanket. The ground, green and grassy only that very afternoon, was repeatedly churned by the driving rain, and all that wasn't submerged was brown and muddy and revolting. Standing as close to the entryway as she could without getting wet, Alex could smell rot, earth, and the indescribable damp odour that only a torrential downpour produces. The air was sharp and charged. Lightning flashed somewhere nearby, and the accompanying thunder was a deafening roar, closely followed by a terrified yelp from Ensign Pini.

Alex cast a reassuring smile over her shoulder at the young officer. This was Pini's first landing party, and the first time that she had been down to any planet. The boomer was not enjoying the experience all that much, and hadn't been from the moment the pod had landed.

She had been the wrong person to send on this mission. Alex had said so from the start.

For her part, she was more worried about the shuttle than her own safety. The temple was old, sturdy, and made of stone; it had weathered many such storms before. The shuttlepod was brand new, a marvellous union of human, Andorian, Vulcan, Tellarite, Rigelian, and half-a-dozen other technologies. That it worked at all was, in the cynical young woman's opinion, nothing short of miraculous. She didn't expect that being struck by lightning would do wonders for the fragile vehicle.

Alex consoled herself that, if the pod was destroyed, _Endeavour_ could simply send down another, or beam the party aboard using her flashy matter transporter device. The former option relied very much on finding someone willing to pilot one of those abominable boxes, and Alex would not trust a pair of old shoes to the transporter, let alone her genetic structure. She didn't care how many times Chief Fran told her that the machine was perfectly safe, anything that took you apart at the subatomic level, sent you spinning through space, and stuck you back together at the other end, was just asking for trouble. A tiny mistake, say the computer not carrying the one in any of the billions and billions of calculations involved in transporting, and her foot could be literally in her mouth. No thanks.

Turning away from the entryway, she wandered deeper into the temple, to where the archaeologists had established their temporary residence. A portable heater warmed the heavy, dusty air, and the damp sleeping bags they had hastily snatched from their now-drowned tents when the storm had broken; a ring of lamps produced a spot of perfect white light, in which the scientists sat and moaned.

"Hateful planet," muttered Ensign Houlah, the ship's senior archaeologist, and a man who fitted his species surly stereotype to perfection. Alex couldn't remember how many times those same words had passed his hairy, stumpy snout, either before or after the storm had started.

"There wasn't even any point in coming down here," continued DeSalle, picking up where the Tellarite had left off. "Pre-warp civilisation, ancient Roman level of development, circa 50 B.C. Long dead. Big deal. I could have stayed on the ship. At least the water's warm there."

He had sung a very different tune when they had first landed, two days ago. This primitive city had been fascinating back then. DeSalle and his colleagues had rushed excitedly from ruin to ruin, digging, dusting, photographing, packing little bits of broken pottery into plastic bags to take back to the ship, and trying to convince her that this was the most exciting thing in the universe, and not, as Alex had opined, slightly less fun than trying to eat a brick. Now that it had turned cold and wet, and they had been cut off from the starship, they were suddenly singing her tune.

Pini moaned piteously. "I don't like it here. I really don't." Another crash of thunder saw her leap comically and turn quite white. The young woman's green eyes were two large pools of uncomprehending fear that skittered around, hunting for the familiar and comfortable amongst what she saw, and finding none. No bulkheads, computer terminals, power conduits, gravity plates, turbolifts, or any of the other fixtures that had been so much part of her world growing up. Who had thought sending a space boomer on this landing party would be a bright idea? Alex would have words with the first officer when she returned to the ship, and if she was still in this sort of mood they wouldn't be the kind of words used in polite conversation.

"You've been saying that since we got here," snapped DeSalle, his patience with the youth long since exhausted. "Just shut up already."

Alex had had enough. She had listened to the archaeologists moan and bitch for hours now, and was long past the point of sympathising with them. Yeah, it sucked being stuck on this bog of a planet, but complaining about it just made everyone feel worse. She snapped, "Watch it, DeSalle." Her voice was low and angry, and carried a Manchurian accent that exposed her origins. In the regular course of things, she worked to disguise her accent and enunciate in Standard English. When it was possible to tell her city of birth from her speech, it was a sure sign that her fiery temper had been ignited.

DeSalle was too angry, cold, and miserable to care. He stood and squared off against her, his fists balled and his one good eye sparking. A patch of scared skin, a memento of the Romulan War, covered the other. "Yeah? Or what? You'll put me on report?"

"I'll feed you your teeth, one by one," she told him matter-of-factly. Her own bony fists were balled and ready to strike; her posture was aggressive. In the lamplight, her crimson eyes were narrowed and threatening, burning like stars. Those eyes appeared particularly demonic in the darkness of the ancient temple, particularly chilling.

Alex Nain was a young woman, still shy of thirty; she was about five and a half feet tall, healthy without being abnormally skinny, and in the womanly areas she was somewhat under-endowed. She wore black lipstick and eyeliner, but no other makeup adorned her narrow face. Her hair was as fiery as her temperament, and she wore it short and spiky. She had the air of a tomboy, and such she was. She could drink as hard and fight as well as any man on the ship, and was proud of it.

DeSalle knew all of this, and very wisely backed down.

Giving herself a moment to catch her temper, she decided that she would follow DeSalle's advice and put him on report when she was back aboard _Endeavour_. She flicked a glare at Houlah, and the only thing that saved him from being added to her report list was the speed with which he submitted and looked down.

Silence at last, but how long would it last? With nothing to do but sit around and listen to the rainfall, Alex could see the negative points of this world being raised again soon. She was sure that, if they were, she would end up laying someone out. This was only the _Endeavour_'s first assignment; she really didn't want to let the ship down straight away. Will would give her one hell of a lecture.

"You're archaeologists," she told them, "this is an ancient ruin. We dragged a bunch of equipment in here with us. Amuse yourselves."

"I'm a botanist," said Pini.

"I'm sure there are all manner of mould and spores for you," drawled Alex.

Ensign Strauss picked a scanner out of the equipment crate he had helped haul into the temple, and had been slouching against up till now. "This is just to give us something to do, isn't it?"

"So it is. Get to it."

The science team did as instructed, not all of them in good humour. They couldn't very well refuse, even if that had been their want; not only was Alex the senior-most officer present, she was a close friend of the captain's. There was some speculation around the ship about just how close the two of them actually were, but even the worst of the rumourmongers had to admit that they had no proof to back up their scandals.

While the green-shirts set about scanning and note taking, Alex helped herself to a torch from the trunk. With the bright light beam she probed the recesses of the temple's main hall, not looking for anything in particular, but wanting something to occupy her. The old stone building was not one of the most exciting that she had ever been in. This chamber was simply a large rectangular area, with a wide-open entryway at one end, and an alter upon a raised stage at the other, a couple of passages leading off from the main area and downwards. The ceiling arched dramatically overhead, giving the illusion that the room was much taller than its actual modest dimensions; Roman-esque pillars were evenly spaced along the walls, supporting that elegant ceiling, and on those walls were engravings that Alex could make little sense of. Some were of men or women, presumably saints or gods; others were large banks of text that Alex was both incapable of and uninterested in reading.

Hardly for the first time, she wondered what temporary insanity had encouraged her to volunteer for this duty. Land a group of nerdy archaeologists on an uninhabited M-class planet so that they could poke around the ruins down there; baby sit those same people for a few days, until their assigned time here was over and they could bugger off somewhere more interesting. Usually, it required captain's orders and half-a-dozen armed security officers to get her to agree to such a job.

She had very little interest in science. Anything that would make her ship fly faster and manoeuvre harder was brilliant, and she would praise it. The rest…you couldn't pay her to be interested in it. Subspace physics? Quantum theory? Microbiology? Keep that crap away from me, was Alex's opinion.

Sweeping the torch around, she didn't see anything greatly fascinating here. She was reminded of a family holiday to Italy when she had been thirteen, and her parents had decided to make one last ditch attempt to culture their daughter. She had been led to any number of Roman ruins, and ignored any number of speeches about how wonderful and Earth shaping the Roman Empire had been. Now, she asked herself why Starfleet Command had ordered the _Endeavour_ to take aboard Houlah's team and transport them dozens of light years to study ruins very much like the ones on Earth. Surely there were better things the Daedalus-class ship could be doing with its time? Delivering stamps, for example. Or joining the ships posturing along the Klingon border.

Oh, how she wanted to be out there. The pastry-heads were rattling their sabres, and Starfleet was making a show of force to get them to back down; dozens of Daedalus-class ships were lining up along the border, ships captained by veterans of the previous war, who would be able to give the Klingons a world of hurt if they attacked. It was a tense time for the young Federation. The threat of another interstellar war, so soon after the devastating Romulan conflict, hung heavily in most people's minds.

Alex loved a good scrap.

People were talking again, quietly, amongst themselves in little groups. Alex was pleased to hear that this was intellectual babble, rather than more negativity. Scientists were like children: give them something to occupy themselves and they soon forgot all about their discomforts.

For her part, she was only too aware that she was cold, wet, and miserably stuck in a ruin on an alien planet. It was movie night aboard the ship. She had no idea what movie was playing, but anything was better than watching dancing shadows.

She looked around to make sure that no one was watching her, and when she was confident that the stones absorbed their whole attention, she turned her eyes to the one person that only she could see. She lounged on the alter, kicking her legs over the side like a bored child, her blood-red cloak drawn around her as though to ward off the cold – although, as she existed only in Alex's mind, she didn't really need to worry about such things. She was playing with one of the long spikes of red hair that sprouted from her head, her crimson eyes staring off into nothingness.

"_Well?"_ Demanded Alex, speaking in her mind. _"I'm only down here because you said there was something interesting. I'm not seeing it."_

"_It's a very big planet."_

Alex came very near to shouting her response to that out loud, and only by biting her tongue did she keep from embarrassing herself. Once she had a handle on her temper, she snarled, _"You mean whatever you were talking about isn't even here?"_

The other woman laughed and kicked herself off the altar. _"Alex, you're far too easy. Yes, it's here. Buried beneath all of this new stuff."_

"_New? This place is hundreds of years old."_

"_Like I said, new. I'm talking of things that happened thousands of years ago."_

She stopped in front of Alex, and grinned at her. It was a familiar expression, worn by a very familiar face. She was about five and a half feet tall, narrow bodied and fit, with red hair worn in spikes, and matching red eyes, in which something cruel and dark danced like a flame. Her lips, which were perpetually twisted in a far from pleasant smile, were dressed in black lipstick.

Alex met the eyes of her other self, _"I'm not that fond of your little riddles, you know. Especially when you can't even be bothered to make them rhyme. I like rhymes. This thing you wanted me to see? Let's go see it."_

"_Ah, but are you really sure you want to? What if you don't like what I have to show you?"_

She looked around the temple again, looked at the temperamental archaeologists, and finally back at her companion. She shuddered, and said emphatically, _"Kana, _anything_ is better than this."_

"_So true. This way then. Oh…and you might want to bring a torch. Just a suggestion."_

**

* * *

**

Chapter Two

Captain William Drake watched the ugly purple smear that hung above the shuttle's landing site. It looked like a big storm, his landing party was right in the middle of it, and he was kicking himself. He should have ordered them to return to the ship before it had broken. He should have listened to Alex, not Houlah. Of course the archaeologist was going to argue to stay down there. Picking through the remains of old civilisations was what he lived for, and he wouldn't want to waste a single minute's opportunity to indulge in his passion.

Why hadn't he listened to Alex? She was one of his senior officers, as well as his best friend. Her opinion carried weight. But she always looked for any excuse to pack up and come home when he sent her on scientific missions. How was he to know that that hadn't been the case this time?

He hoped she was okay. He hoped that they were all okay, of course, but his greatest concern was for her safety. Because if anything happened to her…

"Still no signal?" He asked, as much to take his mind off his worries as out of interest in the answer. If the landing party had sent any messages, he would have heard about it by now.

Comm Officer Rico Martinez shook his head. "No, sir. The storm is still generating too much interference."

He found that a difficult thing to accept, as he had done the last few times Martinez had given the same answer. This time, he questioned it. "This is a state-of-the-art starship. That is a miserable thunderstorm. You'd have thought we had the technology to send a signal through it."

"We might be able to boost our comm signal through the storm, sir. But the landing party doesn't have our power. They wouldn't be able to reply. We wouldn't even know if they received our message, sir."

Drake hadn't wanted to hear that. He reminded himself that Alex was a survivor, that she had been through a whole lot worse in her adventurous life, and that the storm wasn't powerful enough to do them any real harm if they had found some high, solid ground to shelter in. He still worried, and he didn't think that he would stop worrying until he saw them all safe and sound back aboard the ship.

The rear turbolift door opened with a puff of hydraulics, and a slender young woman wearing the brown and gold robes of a Vulcan scientist stepped onto the bridge. She was surprised to observe the strong, bushy bearded form of Captain Drake sitting in the centre chair, well into the ship's Delta Shift, but she suppressed her reaction masterfully.

"Good night, Captain," she said civilly, as she moved to the main science console. _Endeavour_'s bridge was a large dome-shaped structure, with a sunken central section in which the captain's chair, as well as the helm and navigation consoles, was located. The outer wall was covered with workstations, and the command pit was divided from the main area of the bridge by a rail. This rail was formed of the engineering station on the starboard side, science on the port, and tactical behind the captain's chair. The bridge was far too small for all the workstations that were crammed into it, and at the height of the Alpha Shift there was barely enough room for all the crew to fit around their positions.

"Doctor," said Drake. He blamed the lateness of the hour and his anxiety over the landing party for letting his dislike of the Vulcan slip into his voice.

If she noticed or cared, she didn't let it show. With dignified grace, she lowered herself into position and put her eyes against the glowing blue slot of the data viewer. Information scrolled in front of her vision, and she rapidly absorbed it, seeing nothing of interest. Her long, tapered fingers manipulated controls on her board, to refocus the sensors on another portion of the planet. She was almost put out when the computer refused to acknowledge her input. After a second failed attempt, she said, "Captain, I am unable to realign the sensors."

"I ordered them locked."

"For what purpose, Captain?"

"We're monitoring the storm over the southern landmass."

Sarn looked at the main screen, which was absorbing so much of the captain's interest. "So I see. Why are we devoting our attention to this phenomena?"

"Our landing party is down there." Drake wished that she would shut up. Just the sound of her clipped, precise, ever-so-slightly arrogant voice made him want to slap her.

"According to sensors, the storm poses no danger to any of the structures the landing party is in proximity to. Additionally, it will exhaust itself before twelve hundred hours tomorrow. Logically, there is no reason to monitor it."

He knew that the smart thing to do was to keep his mouth shut right now. Arguing with a Vulcan was just guaranteed to raise his blood pressure. "Maybe not. But those are my people down there. I want to keep an eye on them."

"Our observations will not effect what happens on the planet."

"No," said Drake through his teeth, "but it'll make me feel better."

"That, Captain, is highly illogical."

He turned his chair so that he was looking at her. Pulled a very obviously false smile, and drawled, "Hey, Doctor, I'm an illogical guy."

"I have observed that, Captain. Might I have permission to access the secondary sensor array?"

His first impulse was to say 'no', but he realised that he was being petty before he could actually say it, and congratulated himself on his restraint. He reminded himself that Sarn hadn't asked to be put aboard his ship, and that she wasn't intentionally trying to annoy him. She wasn't really that bad. In fact, if she hadn't been Vulcan he might have even liked her, just a little bit. "What do you need it for?"

"I was performing a topographical survey of the island chain three hundred kilometres west of the continent on screen. Preliminary scans identified unusual crystalline deposits."

"What kind of crystal? Dilithium?"

Those crystals, which were used to regulate the matter-antimatter reaction in a starship's warp core, were the most valuable substance in the galaxy. The discovery of a cache of crystals on the planet would suddenly make it a very important rock, and make this assignment a worthwhile one.

"No, sir," disappointed Sarn. "But the crystals emit a subspace signature that is unique in my experience."

That wasn't as good as hearing that they were sitting above a massive crop of dilithium, but it was a new discovery, and that validated their presence. It would also annoy Admiral McCaffrey, who had sent them on this task to waste their time.

"Very well." He walked over to her station and entered a code. "There you are. Secondary arrays. Make your scans."

She nodded and set to work without another word. Drake returned to his seat, thinking that a thank you might have been nice.

That kept him nicely irritated for a few minutes, before he went back to worrying.

**

* * *

**

Chapter Three

"_Where are we?"_ Enquired Alex.

"_The catacombs. The bones of ancient priests and leaders keep us company. Doesn't that make you feel better?"_

"_No,"_ said Alex, poking her torch beam around the pitch-black passageway she was being led through. _"And creepy little speeches like that one make me want to slap you."_

Kana pouted. _"I like to make creepy little speeches."_

"_Yeah, I know. And usually I at least pretend to like to hear them, but I'm tired, cold, irritable, and I really want a pint. I hope these tombs aren't what you wanted to show me. Because, frankly, I'm not impressed."_

"_You only ever see what's right in front of you,"_ Kana observed, sounding disappointed with her. _"No, Alex, these little stone coffins aren't what I want to show you. I know you think I'm a wicked individual – "_

"_You _are_ a wicked individual!"_ Alex replied, but she laughed a little.

"_True. But I'm not that morbid. The real history of this planet is buried beneath these tombs, far, far down."_

"_Do you want to give me a clue here?"_

"_What?"_ Grinned Kana. _"Spoil the surprise?"_

Alex Nain gave her companion a harsh stare. _"Your last surprise nearly got us both killed, remember? Those…what were they called? The people who looked like really big scorpions. With bull heads."_

"_The Mkaok?"_

"_Yeah, that's them. You didn't tell me that you only touch them if you're married, or issuing a challenge. Half the bloody population thought I wanted to duel them! No more surprises. Ever. What's down there?"_

"_The last remnants of a civilisation that has been dead for three thousand years."_

"_See, you're being creepy again. And that's nothing you had anything to do with, I trust?"_

Kana frowned. _"I don't know."_

Alex believed her. Her friend could be described as evil – she took great delight in destroying things: ships, people, worlds. She never hid from what she had done, no matter how dark and terrible; and in her time she had done some truly diabolical things. Also so wonderful things, which was the only reason that Alex was prepared to forgive the evil.

"_Let's take a look, then. Where is it?"_

Kana marched to the far end of the catacombs and brushed her immaterial hand against the stone. She searched for a moment, then stopped and smiled. _"Here. This panel is false. There's a door behind it."_

"_Good find. Were you ever a tomb raider, or grave robber, Kana?"_

"_I've lived for epochs, Alex, I've been everything."_

"_Yeah. Including a ghost in my head."_

She grinned. _"My proudest achievement."_

Alex shone her torch over the panel that her companion had indicated. Looking closely, she could tell that the stone didn't match that of the rest of the crypt; it was a slightly brighter colour and its texture was smoother. There was a very fine join between the panel and the rest of the wall, which went right the way around. Assuming that Kana was right about this being a door, she would have to crawl through it: it wasn't even half her height.

"_Where does it lead?"_

Kana pulled her trademarked 'could you have asked a dumber question?' look. _"Why don't we open it and find out?"_

A fair enough response, decided the helmsman. She looked around for a handle, anything that she could grab hold of and pull on, but there was nothing; the stone was flat. The panel didn't budge when she tried leaning against it. She pulled out her scanner, turned it on and pointed it at the door, before remembering that she had no idea how to use one and returned it to her belt.

"_Little help?"_

Kana studied the carvings on the false panel, but she could make no sense of what was written there. Billions of languages swum inside her pretty head, but not the language of these people. She emitted a frustrated growl and stuck her head through the wall. It took her only a moment to work out how the mechanism operated, and she instructed Alex to press a particular carving. An ancient mechanism groaned unhappily into life and the door rolled partway open, before the technology finally and forever broke down.

"_Breathe in deep,"_ suggested Kana.

Squeezing through the narrow passageway, Alex was glad that she had never been claustrophobic. Will was. He couldn't even look at one of the ship's Jeffries tubes without getting uncomfortable. She had always thought that kind of sad, in the pathetic sense. It wasn't like a confined space could attack and kill you. She'd met a lot of things that had tried to attack and kill her – most of them were Kana's fault – but never a tight room.

It was no darker in the crawlway than it had been in the crypt itself, but the confined space made it seem that way. The air was far staler, and Kana cheerfully suggested that it probably hadn't circulated in centuries, before going on to hypothesise about what bacteria or spores might have lain dormant here for all that time, only to be awoken now by Alex. The human reminded herself of what little she knew of xenobiology: alien diseases were very rarely capable of surviving in the human body. She was perfectly safe.

The crawlway curved downwards, gently at first so that Alex didn't notice it, but more and more as she progressed. She was going quite a way down. What was down here? Kana claimed not to know, but she was getting increasingly excited as they descended. Whatever had drawn her to this place, it was clearly nearby.

Another hatch barred their way. This one opened more easily, yielding to a heavy kick, and the two Nains climbed out of the shaft. They didn't find themselves where they would have expected to be; they weren't in another stone chamber.

They were standing in a shiny steel corridor, aboard what was quite obviously a very old spaceship.

"_Okay,"_ said Alex, trying to be cool about it, _"this is a little unexpected."_

"_Yeah. Doesn't fit with the stone walls and animal sacrifice motif that this place has got going."_

"_No, it doesn't. Wonder why we didn't detect this thing."_

"_It's buried underground, and its power sources are dead," _said Kana. _"It probably showed up on sensors as a clutch of minerals, or something; easily overlooked."_

A possibility, Alex supposed. It was equally possible that no one had been looking for it, and that was why it hadn't been found. She for one had never expected to find a high-tech spaceship buried beneath a Roman temple. Not in a million years. _"Fine. Next question: what the hell's it doing here?"_

Kana looked around and offered, _"Being crashed and broken, I suspect."_

"_You're a regular Sherlock Holmes, have I ever told you that?"_

Kana decided to ignore the insult and explore her surroundings. She didn't need Alex's torch to see by; although her eyes appeared identical to Alex's, they saw far more than the human's. Her vision effortlessly pierced the darkness. She had seen ships in worse condition than this, but only after prolonged battle. There were blasted cables dangling from any number of tears in the walls and ceiling, debris cluttered the floor, and just a few steps from where Alex stood the deck had collapsed, opening up a hole that plunged down four levels.

"_I'll take over from here,"_ Kana announced.

Alex felt a rush of warmth throughout her entire body, a blanket of glee that wrapped around her and lifted her up and away; away from all cares and responsibilities. She felt as though every care she had ever accumulated in life had fallen away, and she floated on bliss. Then the feeling passed, and was standing beside herself, a ghost in her own shadow.

Kana's eyes opened, burning with an unnatural light; her spirit now in control of her host's body. Her power surged through Alex's human form, strengthening it, enhancing its senses, and making it something more than human. She removed Alex's uniform jacket and hung it from her shoulders, simulating the cloak that she loved to wear.

The signal was still in her mind, still drawing her onwards. Kana stepped around the pit in the deck and strode down the corridor, following it to its source. As she walked she tried to identify the ship and its builders, but she couldn't. All spacecraft were built along similar lines (even fantastic semi-organic bioships were all built alike, whoever made them) but there were always little clues as to the creator; bits of architecture, the paint scheme, a symbol here or there, the way things were wired up or the spectrum of the lights. From what she saw, she knew who _hadn't_ made the ship, but who had remained a mystery. That intrigued and frustrated her. Intrigued because she had thought that, over the eons that she had lived, she'd met just about every species there was; and frustrated because whoever these people were, they had left a beacon to draw her in, suggesting that they knew more about her than she did about them; and that was a situation that she would never be able to stand.

What had happened to this ship to bury it on this planet? She was sure that Alex cared a whole lot more about the answer to that than she did – and Alex probably didn't care all that much – but still she was a little curious. A starship becoming part of the landscape didn't happen every day, and those that did usually did so in a million flaming pieces. That this one had survived re-entry and landing – crash landing, if the damage around the place was anything to go by – suggested to Kana that it was a colony ship of some kind. She started to wonder if the deceased indigenous population of this planet was indigenous at all, before realising that she didn't care in the slightest and forgetting about it.

She climbed down a ladder and found herself in an even more badly damaged section of the ship. Everything was badly burnt, and Kana trod carefully, not trusting the deck plates not to crumble beneath her feet. She was starting to wonder if sating her curiosity was the wisest thing to do here, when she found the first body.

Fire had reduced it to a badly damaged skeleton: humanoid. What interested Kana wasn't the body itself, but the technology that had been fused to it: servos, hydraulics, microprocessors, a host of other bits and pieces too badly damaged to identify; all of it moulded into the skeleton. There was part of an artificial brain, and a mechanical lung that had survived the cleansing fire.

Kana spent a moment analysing the corpse. Cybernetic beings weren't uncommon in the galaxy, although the Federation had yet to encounter any. The Borg that dominated most of the Delta Quadrant were one example, but there were plenty of others.

This wasn't the remains of a Borg drone, however. Curious.

"_That looks pleasant,"_ Alex said grimly, kicking at part of the corpse's mechanical leg with her immaterial foot. _"Plastic surgery to the extreme!"_

"_This wasn't cosmetic, and it wasn't done to make this person stronger or smarter. I've seen technology like this before. You're looking at someone who was repaired. He, or she, was probably excessively injured, and they added cybernetic parts to rebuild him. Or her."_

"Six Million Dollar Man_, huh?"_

"_Right." _Kana stood and dusted down her hands, losing interest in the corpse.

The next one they encountered held her interest for less time, and the third for nearly none at all. The fourth body, however, had her and Alex kneeling by its side, examining it thoroughly.

"_No metal bits,"_ observed Alex.

"_No. But look at this. His ribs have been shattered, and I'd say this was done by a projectile."_

"_A bullet?"_

"_Yup. And if you remember the last robo-man we passed, he had a gun for a left arm."_

Alex nodded, remembering. She didn't like where her friend was going with this thought. _"Robo-men verses humans?"_

"_Or whatever these people were. It sounds plausible to me. The interesting thing is that this skeleton belongs to the same species as the robo-men."_

"_Their own creations turned on them?"_

"_Seems that way."_ Kana grinned. _"Mad scientists, hey? When will they ever learn?"_

"_Not funny. And is robo-man the best name you can come up with for these guys?"_

"_What'd you prefer I call them? Borg? Cyber-people?"_

"_That's even worse! You can forget naming anything from now on, I'll handle that."_

"_All right,"_ said Kana, a little insulted. _"What do you want to call them?"_

"_Bob."_

"_Bob?"_

"_It's better than robo-men."_

Kana shook her head, but she couldn't be bothered to argue.

At the next ladder, Kana climbed up several decks, until she was higher up than she had been when she'd first entered the ship. While she climbed she realised that they now had an explanation for the single anomalous hill in this otherwise flat section of country: nature had simply encompassed the ship.

She entered a large spherical chamber that had obviously seen much gunfire. In the centre, a wrecked processing tower stood, riddled with hundreds of bullet holes. It was as cold and dead as anything else aboard, and yet she felt threat radiating from it, hot and hostile. Quite illogically, she kept her distance, as she circled around to the back of the room, where the beacon was.

There was nothing to see. It was a purely psychic emanation, and tuned to Kana's specific brainwaves. It had been created to draw her here, and impart a single message: _Remember_. This now done, it fell silent and dissolved into nothingness.

"_You done here?"_ Alex asked, sounding more anxious than she had been since the close of the Romulan War.

"_I'm done."_

"_Then let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps, Kana. I don't know why, but it…it just frightens me."_

She expected her companion to make fun of her. Kana usually did, whenever Alex was honest about her feelings. This time, she nodded and said, _"Me too."_

Leaving the ship seemed much quicker than getting into it had been. Before she knew it, Alex was standing back in the catacombs. The crushing weight of reality fell back on her shoulders as Kana switched control of their body back to her. She took a moment to pull herself together, as she always had to upon being expelled from paradise, before turning her torch on and finding her way back up to the main level of the temple.

The storm was still raging outside, seeming to have lost none of its fury. She and Kana had been gone for hours, but it appeared that no one had missed them. The archaeologists were busying themselves, more excited about their work now than they had been when she'd left them.

"How's it going?" She said, to no one in particular.

Houlah came over. "You're back. Come on, there's something for you to see."

"Whatever it is, I probably don't care."

"Even someone as totally ignorant of the past as you will want to see this," insisted the Tellarite, taking a hold of her sleeve (she had pulled her jacket back on when she'd got her body back) and pulling her along. Alex was tempted to punch him in the snout, and silently vowed to do so if he was wasting her time.

He led her into a back section of the temple, down a slightly different path to the one that Alex had taken into the catacombs. None of the archaeologists had got down there yet, but they would soon. On Kana's advice, she had closed up the passageway into the starship. There was something sinister aboard that craft, something that had spooked her tough-as-neutronium other self, and she wasn't about to expose her shipmates to it. That dead vessel would remain a secret known to her and Kana alone.

The room that Houlah showed her into was far less impressive than the starship that Kana had found. It was a simple hexagonal chamber, with a statue in the middle. This statue was of two figures, one of them standing tall, strong, and heroic, while the other hung ominously in her shadow.

"Oh my…" whispered Alex.

"_How flattering,"_ drawled Kana.

It was she and Kana who were depicted there; Alex could see that at a glance. The artist had taken certain liberties – statue-Alex was a far more womanly figure than her real-life counterpart, and Kana's demonic air had been exaggerated to the point of giving her fangs and claws – but there was no mistaking the inspiration.

"_How in the hell?"_

"_Beats me,"_ said Kana, honestly as baffled as her host.

"_Were you here in the past?"_

"_Can't remember visiting this planet. And anyway, I didn't look like this before I fused with you."_

"Thought you'd like it," said Houlah, sounding like he was accusing her of something.

"It's…uncanny." Alex was at a loss for words. She circled the statue, looking at it from every angle. It had to be a coincidence, there was no way that it could be her crafted in stone there. But if it was a coincidence it was a staggeringly huge one. Another humanoid in the galaxy that looked like her? Not that much of an impossibility. But one that looked like her _and_ had a dark reflection of herself for company _and_ had her taste in clothing? That was stretching things far beyond credibility.

"_Okay, this is getting seriously weird. First, you receive some strange signal drawing you to this place, then we find that crashed starship, and now this."_

"_Whoever drew us here, they obviously know a great deal about us."_

"_Yeah. But who? And why?"_

Kana shrugged helplessly. During her extended existence she had gathered more enemies than she could count on a long weekend. Few had survived to this day, and none knew that she now existed within Alex Nain; so none of them could have set this up. At least…she didn't think so.

And then there was the signal. There was something…strangely familiar and intimate about it, but she couldn't define what it was.

Faced with something she couldn't explain, Alex did what she did best: she got angry. Turning on Houlah and narrowing her eyes, she steamed, "Very funny."

The Tellarite was surprised. "What?"

"Thought you'd get me back, did you? What did you do, use a phase pistol?"

"What are you talking about?"

She gestured furiously at the statue. "This. A three thousand year old statue that happens to look like me? Nah, too big a coincidence. This is a joke, and I don't find it very funny!"

"Are you blind?" Houlah demanded, waving a scanner under her nose. "Check the readings. This was carved millennia ago."

"I can't read one of those things, and you know it."

"If you're too ignorant – "

"Watch it," she balled a fist.

Pini stepped between them, anxious and upset, her fragile grip on her emotions almost broken; tears swelled in her pretty little eyes. "Please, don't argue any more. I can't stand it."

"_She's right, you know,"_ Kana told her, hovering over the young officer's shoulders. _"And Houlah's right about this thing. It is old. I can sense it. This isn't a trick."_

Alex bit her lower lip and counted to ten, cooling down. When she was calm again, she said, "Can you explain it, Houlah?"

The Tellarite was too fumed to talk to her, so DeSalle stepped in. "No. But the design is consistent with other, older artefacts we've found. This…person was obviously an important figure in their culture. Not a god – she, neither of them, is depicted in the main temple – but maybe a champion, like the legendary Greek characters of myth."

"_That sounds unlikely," _mused Kana. _"I don't do 'champion'."_

"_You're background,"_ said Alex, teasingly, feeling much better now. Her temper was violent, but didn't last. _"I'm the champion. You look like the anti-hero."_

"_Tempting you to fall into darkness. Yeah, that sounds more like it,"_ she finished with a smile.

Alex stood with her hands on her hips and stared at the statue some more. She whistled and said, "That's a hell of a thing. I've seen some weird stuff in space, but this takes the biscuit. Okay, get what readings you can. I bet Sarn and her lot will love this."

**

* * *

**

Chapter Four

"Coffee?"

"Yeoman, I –"

"Yeoman?" Commander Tholiar frowned, her silver-white eyebrows knitting above her sea-grey eyes. "I didn't know I had been demoted."

Captain Drake sat up straight in his chair, forcing his heavy eyes to open and the fog of sleep to lift from his mind. He had dozed off in his command chair, which was embarrassing.

"Sorry. Thank you, Commander." He accepted the cup and guzzled it greedily. It was strong coffee, obviously made by the Andorian herself; she had a taste for very strong coffee. Much stronger than he liked. He set the metal mug down on the small coffee table in front of his chair. "Very nice."

Her antennae twitched, but that was all the response she gave to that statement. Instead, she said, "You have been here all night, sir. You should rest."

"I think I just did, Commander."

"Proper rest, Captain. In a bed. You're no use to us exhausted."

Drake knew that a lot of humans took umbrage at being told what to do by aliens. There were some Starfleet captains who would not permit non-humans to hold senior positions on the bridge. Aliens had always tried to hold humanity back, first by withholding technology from them and then by refusing to come to Earth's aid, initially during the Xindi crisis, and later during the Romulan War. Only now, with humanity leading the new Federation, did they marshal round the human race.

He was more open-minded. Tholiar was an excellent officer, formerly of the Andorian Imperial Guard. She had applied for the post when he was putting together his crew, he had read her service record, been impressed, and had requested her presence aboard as his Number One. That she had grey-blue skin and blue blood in her veins was of no matter to him, just as it didn't matter that his tactical officer was Bolian, or that a hundred other members of his crew didn't come from Earth or her colonies.

The Federation was about equality and cooperation. While he didn't believe in the organisation itself, some of its principles seemed wise to him.

"I'm just a little concerned about our landing party."

Tholiar lowered her voice so that no one could overhear her. "Alex?"

"And the others. Mainly Alex," he admitted.

She approached her next topic carefully. "You two are very close."

It was a liberty to make such a comment, as she well knew, but she had a close working relationship with the captain, and they were sociable off duty; she felt that she could get away with it.

Drake matched her hushed tone. "She's the reason I'm here. I met her during the war. She was a privateer – possibly a pirate, I never asked. We got on from the moment we met. She was aboard _Challenger_ when it was attacked. Five birdies. We only survived because she can fly so well. She volunteered to join the fleet after that. We've served together ever since. Can't imagine being on a ship without her."

Tholiar had never felt so close to anyone, and she envied Drake's attachment to Alex. Especially as she knew it was reciprocated by the young woman. How nice that must be, she imagined, to love and be loved, and nicer still that there was no fire of romance to damage their perfect friendship. She hoped one day to know how it felt for herself.

For now, she was content to do her duty, and worry about personal things later. It was a tactic that had worked so far in her life, and she saw no reason to change it any time soon.

"Captain, I will alert you the moment we re-establish contact. You have my word as an officer. Go and sleep."

His devotion to his friend made him want to stay on the bridge until she was safely back aboard, but the more logical, and more fatigued, parts of his brain agreed with Tholiar. He lifted his aching body from the command chair, relinquishing it to her; then, taking his coffee mug in his hand, he made his way into the portside turbolift.

His small cabin was located on deck five of the ship's spherical primary hull. Barely large enough for its basic furniture of a desk, a bed, a work chair and a lone comfortable armchair, it reminded Drake very much of his accommodation at Starfleet Academy, and he had sworn that he would never again live in such a pathetic excuse for a room after he had graduated.

He set his empty mug on the desk, shed his navy blue uniform and gold command shirt, and crawled into bed. The Starfleet-issue sheets were thin, the pillow thinner, and he vowed yet again to replace the lot the next time _Endeavour_ put into port.

He wondered when that might be. How long would Admiral McCaffrey keep them out here, ferrying parties of scientists from one obscure planet to another? How petty could the man be?

He was still thinking about it when he fell asleep.

**

* * *

**

Chapter Five

"Now there's a sight for sore eyes," remarked Alex Nain, smiling cheerfully.

Through the forward porthole of the shuttlepod, the _Starship Endeavour_ could be seen in all her glory. The vessel's silver hull caught the golden glory of the rising sun, and she shone like a beacon amongst the stars, welcoming her people home. She was a construct of basic shapes – spherical main hull, tubular engineering section, and rectangular pylons holding aloft cylindrical nacelles – but somehow those shapes came together to form a picture of loveliness, at least to Alex's eyes. Far better looking than those old flying saucers, the NX-class.

She wasn't just a pretty ship, she was also home, and that made Alex all the gladder to see her. She had spent most of her life wandering, seeing and experiencing all she could but never staying in one place too long; never long enough to get attached to anyone or put down any roots. She had seen more worlds than all the officers and crewmen in Starfleet had combined, but there wasn't one that she felt like returning to. And not just because she and Kana seemed to get in trouble wherever they travelled.

The _Endeavour_ was the first place that Alex had ever considered to be home. When she was away from the ship, her first thought was always to return. As a wanderer, she found it a very strange sensation.

She flicked on the comm and said, "Shuttlepod One to _Endeavour_; requesting permission to land."

"Shuttlepod One, this is _Endeavour_ Flight Control. Landing clearance is granted. Approach shuttle bay and await bay door opening."

"Acknowledged."

She dripped the shuttle along the spine of the great starship, floating a few hundred meters into space behind it before she pulled the nose around and fired her thrusters, to kill her momentum. A few taps of the altitude control jets and the shuttle was lined up perfectly with the shuttle bay door at the very rear of the engineering hull. Four red lights began to flash, two on either side of the door, and the massive panel rose upwards. Kana's advanced senses could make out the thin membrane of the force field that prevented the bay from dramatically decompressing; to Alex's eyes, it was invisible, and some magic force might have held the atmosphere in.

"Bay doors open. Standby for tractor beam."

Alex put all the engines into idle mode and removed her hands from the controls. "Standing by."

A few seconds later, a thin teal rope of energy lassoed the shuttle and began to draw her into the shuttle bay. Alex twitched and fidgeted in her seat. She hated being under traction; she hated being aboard a ship at not being in control of its flight. She simply didn't trust anyone else with such things, and especially not some hunk of circuitry and programming. Chief Fran had tried, on several occasions, to explain to her that the starship's computer was very, very clever, but Alex just didn't care. It could have the IQ of a hundred Einstein's and she still wouldn't trust it with the helm of any ship she happened to be in. _No one_ could fly as well as her, simple fact.

The shuttle drifted through the atmospheric force field, and was manoeuvred into its parking position, between two identical pods. It landed in darkness; a great shadow cast by the wing of Alex's private ship, which was berthed awkwardly in a jury-rigged cradle, hung from the ceiling, that the engineers had set up for it – the craft being far too large to fit into a regular shuttle berth.

Alex had to wait for the archaeologists to disembark, before she could squeeze around the crates of artefacts that they had insisted on bringing back and leave the shuttle herself. She stretched out her limbs, yawned, and wondered whether the ship's bar would be serving alcohol at this time in the morning, and whether she was really, really desperate enough to drink watered-down Starfleet booze. Deciding that, yes, she probably was, she started for the exit doors, and nearly walked straight into two friends.

"Will, Sarn," she exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear. "Come to welcome me home?"

"Welcome home," Drake obliged, embracing her in a quick, friendly hug.

Sarn didn't go in for hugging. She stood demurely, her hands behind her back, and said in her cool voice, "The captain was most concerned for you, Lieutenant."

"Was he? Aww. How sweet." She laughed and gave Drake a playful punch on the arm. "I'm fine. You should know, Will: I'm indestructible. But I'm glad you're both here. We've got an interesting little package you'll want to see."

The captain and scientist glanced at each other, each hoping that the other had a better understanding of what Alex was saying than they did. Finding no help, they let themselves be led back to the shuttlepod by Alex. Cargo handling teams were already unloading the crates, watched over by the archaeologists, who were as nervous as mother hens. Alex spotted the particular relic that she wanted her friends to see, and had it moved to one side. She unfastened the locks and stood with her hand on the handle for a moment, wondering if she should give this some sort of build up, before dismissing the idea as too much of a cliché. She threw the door open, spun around quickly, and laughed at the dumbstruck faces that stared back at her.

"That's…" Began Drake, before his voice failed him.

Sarn provided the ending, "You."

"Yeah. How's that for a bit of a mystery, hey? A three thousand year old statue of yours truly. Or my celebrity look-a-like, anyway. Just about wins the weird award, doesn't it?"

Drake nodded. Strange as space was – and he had experienced some wacky things out there himself – he hadn't heard of anything quite like this before. His helmsman had, three thousand years ago, been inspiration for sculptors on a world that no human had been to before now. If there was a logical explanation for all that, he wasn't seeing it.

Neither was Sarn, but she saw something else that made her curious. "Who is the figure behind you?"

The captain had been too stunned by the image of his friend cast in stone to really notice the second figure, but now he did. He frowned. A second Alex? But a really dark depiction of her. From the cruel smirk, to her claw-like hands and fangs, everything about that figure shouted violence and evil. And Alex wasn't like that at all.

"Good question. Evil me, I guess," shrugged Alex. "She doesn't look very pleasant, does she? Not someone you'd want to bump into in a dark alley."

Sarn took a scanner from the set being offloaded from the shuttle. She tuned the device, pointed it at the statue, and was bemused by the readings. It was illogical, but all the evidence pointed to that being a genuine three thousand year old statue of their helmsman. Which, to coin a phrase, was, "Fascinating."

Alex chuckled. "I guessed you'd say that."

"You do not think so?"

"I think it's weird. Space is full of weird."

Drake nudged a thumb in the statue's direction. "Not quite _that_ weird."

Alex shrugged, while Sarn got down to business. Faced with a mystery like this one, there was only one thing the Vulcan wanted to do: solve it. "I will need all the artefacts transferred to my lab for study. I also require all sensor images taken while planetside."

"You'll have to talk to Houlah about that stuff. It was his expedition." Alex gave the Vulcan a fond smile and continued, "I'd do it for you, but I've just spent a couple of days in his company…"

"Understood," nodded Sarn. A very slight hint of a smile touched her dark eyes. Alex had seen that mini-smile before, although Drake would never believe her when she told him about it. Vulcans didn't show emotion, he told her. Sure they did, she replied, you just had to know where to look.

Alex watched the Vulcan go off in search of the archaeologist. She wondered if she would look that good in dull brown robes. The thought made her itchy to get out of her uniform and into the vest and cloak that she preferred to wear. It wasn't the height of fashion, and a lot of people thought it very strange indeed. Alex blamed her clothing decisions on growing up with Kana, who had some very fixed ideas about what clothes were worth wearing.

Drake was still standing with her, and she smiled at him. "You were worried about me?"

"A bit concerned."

"I'm indestructible," she reminded him, leading the way out into the corridor.

"I know, I know. Tell you the truth; I was concerned for the others."

"Huh? Why?"

"You, stuck on a planet with scientists, sheltering together in an enclosed space…"

"I was on my very best behaviour!"

"Uh-huh."

"Really," she protested, tapping the turbolift call button. "I didn't hit anyone. I didn't even swear at them too much."

The turbolift arrived rapidly, and the two officers got in. Alex pressed the button for deck eight, and it shot forwards, racing through the tunnel that connected the engineering hull to the primary hull. Once the 'lift was in the spherical main module, it would start to act like a traditional elevator and go up.

"I was remarkably restrained."

"I believe you."

"Then why are you using that voice?"

"What voice?"

"The 'sure, sure, whatever you say, Alex' voice."

Drake shrugged innocently. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Yeah you –" Alex paused a moment, thinking. She punched Drake in the arm, none too gently. "You're winding me up!"

"And you're assaulting a superior officer." Drake rubbed his arm, confident that he'd have a bruise there in the morning. "Do you have any idea what the penalty is for that?"

"Slap on the wrist? No sugar in my coffee for a week?"

"Try brig time and possible court martial."

She shook her head. "Doesn't sound like fun to me. What's been happening up here while I was gone? Anything good?"

"We've been in standard orbit around this planet. That basically sums it up. What? You thought the Klingons had popped by, or something?"

"Hope not. Don't think I could forgive you if you'd had a good scrap up here and I'd been stuck baby-sitting eggheads."

Alex's cabin was a short walk from the turbolift stop. She instructed Drake to wait outside while she got changed. She didn't ask because she didn't want Drake to see her in her underwear – she really didn't care about such things – but because her room was a mess that even pigs would find appalling, and she wasn't in the mood for a lecture about how she should keep things tidy.

When she emerged from her room, a few minutes later, she had shed her Starfleet uniform and was dressed in sky blue trousers and vest, a large cloak hanging open over the top. She had also taken a brush to her hair, getting the spikes back into shape, and she felt much better for it.

"Now, that's better. Oh, and if you're thinking of sending me back down there, you can forget it, Will."

"No, we're done here. Fascinating as that statue is, I'm not prepared to waste any more time on this mission. Admiral McCaffrey ordered us to remain here until August 22nd, that's today, so we're done."

"Wonder what our next assignment will be. Something more exciting than all this, I hope."

Drake shook his head. "Keep hoping."

"What does that mean?"

"The admiral and I go a way back."

"So do we."

"Yes. The difference is that you and I like each other."

"Ah," she said, understanding. "Enemies in high places."

"Yup. It takes special talents to make as many powerful enemies as I have, you know."

"Oh, I'm sure."

"_Pfft,"_ snorted Kana contemptuously. _"I've made enemies in galaxies he hasn't even heard of!"_

"_That's nothing to be proud of."_

"_Yeah…but…"_

They tracked back to the turbolift and the captain tapped the call button. While they were waiting for it to arrive, Drake suggested, "I'll go to bridge and organise a change of course. You can tell Sarn, Houlah and the others that we're leaving orbit."

"I've got a better idea: you talk to the scientists and I don't push you down the turboshaft."

Drake mulled over her proposition, before agreeing that it was a remarkably fair one.

**

* * *

**

Chapter Six

Sarn's laboratory was a compact room in the bowls of the ship, full of buzzing computers that irritated her sensitive Vulcan ears, and an odd odour that she could neither define nor find a way of eliminating. The primary science labs were quieter, larger, and better equipped, but there were always Starfleet crewmen milling about in them, working on this or that – always making more noise than was necessary. She preferred quiet when she was working, and this was as close as she could get aboard the _Endeavour_. In a few more weeks she would probably learn how to tune out the computer noise, and everything would be fine.

No, not fine. Better, perhaps, but not fine, and Sarn seriously doubted that it ever would be. Not aboard this ship. Not with a captain whose scientific interest could be summarized in one word: none. He would follow the orders that he was given like a good soldier, and if those orders told him to fly out and study a part of space, he would do so diligently. But only for as long as he was ordered to. The second that time ran out, he would pack it in, no matter what critical tests might still be being run or what discoveries were on the verge of being made.

Right now, the starship was tearing through subspace at warp six, on its way back to Starbase Two and in a hurry to get there. Sarn knew that, when they arrived, the admiral would have nothing for them to do. There would be a period of several days, maybe weeks, in which the ship would simply sit in port. The captain knew that as well as she did. It was a waste of time; time that could be better spent studying the planet they had just left. Particularly in light of the statue that Houlah's team had found, and all that it represented.

She had said all of this to the captain. She had argued her point logically and flawlessly, and still he hadn't listened. If anything, her recommendations had only seemed to make him more anxious to leave, quickly.

Which was another cause for frustration, although Sarn was careful to suppress such feelings. Not only was the captain prejudiced against science, he didn't much like Vulcans either. Why, she didn't know, but she had gauged his feelings very quickly upon coming aboard. He was never overtly unpleasant towards her, but he was colder and more distant with her than he was any other member of his crew. She knew that she wasn't welcome.

It was illogical to be concerned about such things, and she told herself that over and over. Not that this was the first illogical thing that she had done in her life by any means. As far as Vulcans went, she was a little…unconventional. She had tastes and followed practices that were not considered dignified by mainstream Vulcans. She decided that being bothered by what a human captain thought of her could be added to the list.

Frustration at not being able to explain this statue…that could go on there, too. She leant back in her chair and scrutinised the object, while the computer ran another series of scans. So far, she had discovered nothing to contradict her earliest findings. Everything pointed to this being an authentic three thousand year old carving. It was made from local rock, the tools used to shape the stone were appropriate to the technological level of the planet's inhabitants, and its form was consistent with other statuary of the period. Every scan that she had run had just confirmed what the first scanner in the shuttle bay had told her.

But that was impossible. Because that meant that, somehow, three thousand years ago, Alex Nain had been on that planet, and that she had done something to warrant her being immortalised in stone. Which was a ridiculous explanation. It demanded that, at some point, Alex be cast back millennia into the past. How and why? Starfleet knew that time travel was possible; that there were people in the distant future that possessed both the technology and the inclination to tamper with the time stream. But who would select Alex as an agent in their cause? She was a good pilot, and a highly agreeable companion, but she was no great intellect, and nor was she a natural leader or gifted tactician. In fact, she was – in all fairness to her – a bit of an idiot.

No, it was a daft explanation. But the only other that she could conceive was no more likely: that a woman identical to Alex in every respect, down to hairstyle and fashion sense, had lived on this planet in the far distant past. Of the two, the time travel idea was ever so slightly less insane.

Sarn considered the second figure: the dark Alex. She admitted that she didn't know Lieutenant Nain as well as she would like to, but she found it difficult to associate that image with her character. Hotheaded, impulsive, and prone to violence, yes, but the depiction of…evil that was the second Alex figure? No, that wasn't in her. So what had inspired the sculptor to carve it?

A mystery within a bigger mystery, and both of them unsolvable as far as Sarn could see.

"Burning the midnight oil?"

Sarn turned her chair. Alex was standing in the lab's doorway, dressed in her cloak and her merry little smile. It would be impossible for Alex to disguise her emotions, if she ever wanted to. She was the complete opposite of Sarn; while Vulcans strove to suppress their emotions; Alex seemed to go out of her way to make sure everyone knew how she felt. Sarn knew that formed at least a part of why she was drawn to the young human; opposites attract.

"It is long past midnight."

"Yeah. I knew that. Haven't you given up on this thing yet?"

"No. I am surprised, Alex."

"Surprise? Isn't that an emotion?" She smiled to show that she was only teasing. Sarn didn't mind. "Seriously, what surprises you?"

"That you are not more interested in this."

Alex perched herself on the edge of Sarn's desk and shook her head. "Nah. The weirdness of space and I are on a first name basis. I've seen some unbelievable things out there, you know. Sure, this is on the list, but it's not the weirdest."

The scientist wondered what the weirdest experience Alex had had in space was. Something pretty strange if it beat this. She also noticed for the first time the tray of food that the helmsman was carrying, and wondered why she had it. "Are you snacking?"

"Actually, this is something for you." She set down the tray, which had a cup of tea and a plate of steamed vegetables. "I didn't see you in the mess this evening. Chef told me you haven't visited him all day."

"I have been busy."

"Yeah, I realise that. That's why I brought you some chow. Eat up."

Sarn nibbled at the vegetables. They were a little overcooked, but quite acceptable. "I appreciate this, Alex."

"Hey, what are friends for? Listen, Sarn, don't fret about this statue thing. Either it's the biggest coincidence in the history of history, or it's bad news for me. If it's the later, I can take care of it. Believe me."

Unshakable confidence radiated in Alex's deep red eyes. Sarn believed her.

Kana eyed her human counterpart. _"You'll take care of it?"_

"_We'll take care of it."_

"_That's better,"_ she approved.

Whatever Fate had in store, the two Nains would tackle it together, as they always did. That was the way Kana liked it.


End file.
